The End

The last day of July has arrived. I always experience winter as here and then gone in a flash and summer as a season that draaaaags slowly on, but this July has felt like years instead of one month. I look at my book list and am surprised that it was just a few weeks ago that I read the ones at the top. Seems like they are from a more distant past.

Artwear: Fashion and Anti-fashion by Melissa Leventon
I came across this book title on the library website and requested it, only because of the ‘anti-fashion’ part of the subtitle. I sometimes joke to Bill that I am the anti-fashionista, so I was quite looking forward to this book. When I put it on hold the first time, the hold sat there, even though it said the book was on the shelf. This sometimes happens and I remove the hold and request it again, from another library if there’s more than one listing. I couldn’t request a different copy this time, since it’s the only one in the nationwide system, so after a month of nothing happening, I removed it. We moved and I placed the hold again. This time, it was placed in transit quickly. I am glad I did another request for it--what a great book! It was published to go along with an exhibition by the same name at the Fine Art Museums in the San Francisco Bay area. It explores the history and evolving philosophy of artwear, how it relates to other textile art movements, how it is used in performance, and how it relates to the world of fashion. There is a chapter on artwear within the US and in the rest of the world. The author says that, ‘Artwear...is a product of the postindustrial, Western battle of art versus craft, in which craft seeks validation as an equal to art and art seeks to maintain a proper distance. Yet it has also appeared in Asia, where the art/craft divide has not traditionally existed.’ (p 8) The book is packed with wonderful photos of example after example of artwear, some of which are meant to hang on a wall and some of which are meant to be worn, either in everyday life or as part of a performance piece. Knitting, crochet, and felting are all well represented. It’s no surprise that I loved this book!

Dressing Up for the Carnival by Carol Shields
This is a collection of short stories that I picked up in a Moville charity shop. I’m always on the lookout for short story collections and I’d read some of her work before, so I picked up this volume. Shields is quite a good writer with a really great imagination. Many of these stories started from an unlikely theme--a window tax and how a couple of artists coped with having to block their windows, authors and their creative processes leading in unexpected directions, keys--all provide inspiration for the author to delve deeper into minds and hearts. She nails academic jargon--there were a couple of times I laughed out loud. I like her writing at the sentence level, too. In the story, ‘Keys,’ she says this about one of the characters:

‘As a very young child, not more than six or seven years of age, she understood that she was scheduled to have a double existence--an open life in which her actions were plainly visible, and a hidden life where thought and intention squatted darkly. This powerful separation seems wholly natural to her, not a thing to rage against or even to question. The real world, of course, is in her own head, which she sometimes thinks of as a shut room provisioned with declaration and clarity, everything else being a form of theatre.’ (p 100)

Also, the first story begins with a woman deciding what to wear that day and the last story involves an annual naturist retreat, in which clothes play a part, often by their absence. If you enjoy short stories, I can recommend this one.

We Are Michael Field by Emma Donoghue
This is a short biography of Katherine Bradley and her niece, Edith Cooper, who were partners in their personal and professional lives. They wrote together using the pen name Michael Field. They died within a 10 months of each other, Edith in December 1913 and Katherine in September 1914. Their work is not that well known and is of varying quality, according to the author. I have not read any of it, but decided to read the book when I came across it in the e-book section of the library website, having read a short blurb about ‘Michael Field’ in another book.

Parallax by Sinead Morrissey
A prize-winning collection of poems by a Northern Irish poet.

I hope it's a good day in your neck of the woods!

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Watching the Clouds Roll by at Midnight

We were under cloud cover the other night when the lunar eclipse/blood moon was happening, so we didn't get to see it. Last night, though, Bill went upstairs and then commented that the moon and clouds were looking pretty dramatic, so up I went. He was right. I stood in the cool breeze at the bedroom window for close to half an hour watching the clouds move across the sky, sometimes in front of the moon. It was beautiful.

I hope some beautiful sights float your way today.

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Aaah, Almost Autumnal

It has been a lovely day. I have felt such ease and none of the undercurrent of agitation I feel throughout the summer. It has felt almost autumnal today and I spent the day savouring the feeling.

I started a novel this afternoon (The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah). It's about a troubled family who, in 1974, go to live in the Alaskan bush without the proper skills and with very little money. After I'd read through page 164, which is the end of the first part, I looked up, blinking, and had to get my bearings. I was transported right back to Alaska and could visualize the landscape and the seasons, even though we didn't live in the bush and were in a different part of the state. As the author described the people, the light in summer and the dark in winter, the adaptation that's required to live a different kind of life, I was right there in that world.

At that point, which was just after an intense scene, I needed to do something else, so I made some chowder for supper. It's not something I usually make in the summer--especially not this one--but today was cool enough and I wanted to use some stuff up.

Now it's about 9:30 pm and we're having a cup of tea and some wholemeal raisin toast, which also reminds me of autumn, since I made it with cinnamon, ginger, and allspice.

And just to top it off, the coal man just stopped by, saying he used to sell coal to the woman who lived here. Bill said she moved. Coal Man asked if we burned coal. Bill said no. 'Maybe when it gets colder,' Coal Man replied. 'Maybe,' Bill said. Coal Man said he'd come back when it's colder. We're not going to burn coal and we never even put the heat on until the end of November, so when he shows up again, we'll politely decline. The idea of the fire makes me think of autumn, too, but then again, the local shop had a stand outside containing bags of coal and briquettes all through the heat wave. Fires happen all year here.

The only drawback to the rain we had yesterday, last night, and today is that it was too cloudy to watch the eclipse last night. I checked a few times in case there was a well-timed break in the clouds, but there was no moon to be seen.

I might do a bit of cross stitch tonight as I listen to the wind rustling through the leaves. I hope it's a peaceful day for you today in your part of the world.

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Beautiful Breakfast

Happily, I woke up this morning to some rain and slightly cooler temperatures. The forecast is apparently for a return to a more normal summer pattern for Ireland. I hope so. Not a fan of summer, but if there must be one, a typical Irish summer of a bit of sun punctuated by plenty of rain is pretty good and I'll take it over this heatwave extreme sun nonsense we've been having.

Even I will admit that there are a few good things about summer. My breakfast this morning contained some of them.

I've been making muesli as needed to make sure I have a continuous supply. It's perfect for a summer breakfast. I keep it simple by just mixing toasted oats, coconut, raisins, sliced almonds, and walnut pieces. I can eat it plain with milk, mix it into yoghurt, and add whatever fruit I feel like. This morning, it was some raspberries picked from one of the gardens here along with blueberries and bananas. Delicious!

Here's to the yummy stuff growing at this time of year!

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I'm Not a Good Pruner...

pincher, trimmer, or snipper. I was given instructions by the resident expert who creates the beautiful gardens, pots, and hanging baskets about caring for some of the flowers and plants. This involves making sure some things don't get too leggy by cutting back, pinching off bits, and that sort of thing. I flinched as she showed me by grasping a stem with beautiful purple fan-shaped flowers and ripping it off. Still, I know she's right and that this stuff needs to be pinched/pruned/trimmed. She knows what she is doing and is excellent at what she does, so I nodded and said I would do it.

 Yesterday after our return from Donegal Town, I went outside, pinched, snipped, and trimmed. I could not bring myself to toss away what I'd cut, though, so I brought the stems inside and stuck them in a glass of water. They look nice on the mantel.

Here's to new growth!

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I Know Where Your Stuff Is!

Today we made a library run to Donegal Town. I had 6 books come in last week, Bill had a couple of CDs in, and we both had stuff to return. It was time. Because I knew we were going, I took a look at the Lidl email I got the other day and saw they were going to have some sewing thread available starting yesterday. We added that to the Donegal Town itinerary. We got off the bus in the town centre and went down a street we'd not been down before, which ran into more familiar territory. We passed some colourful doors along the way.

Brightly painted doors are quite common here, but these colours are not what I usually see.

We went over the river.

And in about 20 minutes, we arrived at the roundabout at one edge of the town where the Lidl is located. You can see that once you're through the town, you're back into a more rural area.

view from the Lidl car park

Lidl, like Aldi for those of you familiar with that store, has groceries that they stock on an ongoing basis, but part of the store is for rotating items. They have themes, like sewing, crafting, fashion, cleaning, tools, etc. They have a very limited selection of items available, but their prices are quite good. I've gotten sock yarn there in the past and would have gotten more last autumn when we were in Ballybofey, but it became available the day after we left. I'll be keeping an eye out this year! The sewing thread was only available in a few basic colours, but I picked up a cone of red, one of navy blue, and one of grey--I had to search the bin for the grey because it was buried. I shop more at Aldi because, although there is a lot of overlap in terms of what they sell, Aldi stocks more groceries that I use regularly so I go there more often. It's also more convenient, being in the town centre. But it's worth the effort to go to Lidl every so often.

After we were done in Lidl, we headed back into town and just poked around here and there until it was time to go to the library. We'd saved it for last so we would not have to carry around a pile of  books, some of them large. There were a lot of people in there and we were all picking stuff up. There were two librarians and it seemed that one was being trained. The more experienced guy was trying to find the holds that had come in. He was looking through piles and shifting books. Bill spotted his book, which had come in this morning, and the CDs that came last week. The woman in front of us had a book and the one behind us had a couple, all of which were finally found. Then he asked me my name. I told him. 'Ah, Shari,' he said, 'I know exactly where your stuff is. Three more came in today!' And with that, he walked over to a floor-level shelf, bent down, and came back up with a beautiful pile of books. As he dropped the pile on the desk, he commented that there was a library somewhere on this island full of empty shelves.

As we walked back to The Diamond to wait for the bus home, I chuckled and commented to Bill that it never takes long for me to have a reputation when it comes to libraries. They might not be able to put the name with the face right away (this is only the second time we've interacted with this guy), but they can put the name to the books and that's good enough for me!

I'm almost done with an e-book that I borrowed from the library and then I'll have to decide what to read first--I have a memoir, three novels, and a book about carftivism. There's also a cookbook in the pile--The Donegal Table, which was written by a chef from Moville. Three of the books are stitching books about various techniques. Tonight, I plan to make a cuppa or two and flip through one of them. There's nothing like the simple joy of a lovely cup of tea and creative inspiration.

I hope your day is filled with simple joys, too.

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Colour, Shape, Line, and Reflection

I walked down a footpath I'd not been on before and enjoyed a new view.

I hope this new week has started off well for you.

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